The main goal of the conference is to bring together mathematicians and physicists who work on ideas related to string theory. String theory, as well as quantum field theory, has contributed a series of profound ideas which gave rise to entirely new mathematical fields and revitalized older ones. By now there is a large and rapidly growing number of both mathematicians and physicists working at the string-theoretic interface between the two academic fields. The influence flows in both directions, with mathematical techniques and ideas contributing crucially to major advances in string theory.

In the other direction, mathematics has provided physicists with powerful tools, ranging from powerful differential geometric techniques for solving or analyzing key partial differential equations, to toric geometry, to K-theory and derived categories in D-branes, to the analysis of Calabi-Yau manifolds and string compactifications, to the use of modular forms and other arithmetic techniques. The depth, power and novelty of the results obtained in both fields thanks to their interaction is truly mind boggling. String-Math is the annual conference that was founded to reflect the most significant progress at the interface of string theory and mathematics.

For mathematics, string theory has been a source of many significant inspirations, ranging from Seiberg-Witten theory in four-manifolds, to enumerative geometry and Gromov-Witten theory in algebraic geometry, to work on the Jones polynomial in knot theory, to advances in symplectic topology, to recent progress in the geometric Langlands program and the development of derived algebraic geometry and n-category theory.